Friday, 31 March 2017

First “performance based logistics” for indigenous
military platform (Above: Dhruv, flying in Siachen)

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 31st March 17

In 2013, during the Uttarakhand floods, an embattled army
and air force conducted relentless rescue operations for two weeks with 22
Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH), flying more than 1,000 sorties to save
thousands of lives.

Elsewhere, the Dhruv’s robust Shakti engine, optimized for
high altitude flying operations, services the Indian Army’s daunting, 20,000
feet-high pickets on the Himalayan border, including the Siachen Glacier
sector.

Yet, the
Indian military has one problem with this high-performance, indigenous machine
that will form the bulk of its light chopper fleet in the coming decades. It is
that only six-seven out of 10 Dhruvs are available to fly at any moment.

That “fleet
availability” figure of 60-70 per cent is set to improve. On Thursday, the
Dhruv’s manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), signed a contract with
the defence ministry (MoD) that binds HAL to ensure a Dhruv availability of at
least 75 per cent for the next five years.

The MoD
says this unprecedented "performance based logistics" (PBL) contract relates to 32 Dhruv choppers being bought
for Rs 8,000 crore for the navy and the Coast Guard. It will also extend to an
impending contract for 41 more Dhruvs for the army.

This is the
first time an Indian manufacturer is guaranteeing the performance of a weapons
platform to a buyer through a PBL contract. HAL
is charging roughly half the purchase price of each helicopter for providing
the services, maintenance, spare parts and inspections needed to keep 75 per
cent of the contracted fleet fly-worthy at all times.

“PBL is the
purchase of logistics support as an integrated, affordable, performance package
designed to optimize system readiness and meet performance goals for the
product through long-term support arrangements with clear lines of authority
and responsibility”, said HAL chief, T Suvarna Raju.

Calling PBL
a “preferred acquisition strategy for defence acquisitions”, the MoD said
today: “PBL ensures the availability of products to the customer while the
responsibility gets transferred to the contractor. The PBL envisages rewards or
penalties based on the performance [of the fleet]”.

While this
is the first indigenous PBL contract, India has similar contracts in place for
foreign aircraft like the C-17 Globemaster III and the Rafale fighter.

Now this
PBL contract will expand HAL’s maintenance responsibility substantially. The
Dhruv currently operates off 15 aviation bases, which will go up to 40
bases by the time the new order is executed.

On a visit to HAL, Bengaluru in January, Business Standard learnt
that HAL would set up a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) hub in the north
and another in the east, from where repair teams could react to maintenance requests
from aviation bases in their vicinities.

The Dhruv is the military’s primary light helicopter. This
year, HAL will complete delivery of an earlier contract for 159 Dhruvs, of
which 83 are utility versions and 76 are an armed version called the Rudra.

Production capacity is being ramped up for the new contract
for 73 Dhruvs (Army: 41; Navy: 16, Coast Guard: 16). In addition to production
at Bengaluru, a new plant will come up at Kanpur to build Dhruvs.

In the past, HAL, under pressure to build and deliver Dhruv
helicopters, had not focused adequately on maintenance and spares, say aviation
analysts. The low availability this caused eroded customer confidence in an
otherwise superb machine.

At one stage, the secretary in charge of defence production
was monitoring the spare parts position for Dhruvs in the MoD every month. The
PBL contract will henceforth put the onus squarely on the manufacturer, HAL.

Sunday, 26 March 2017

For almost
three decades, the Indian Navy’s giant, four-engine Tupolev-142MK-E has been
the most feared aerial predator in Indian Ocean, the stuff of nightmares for
Pakistani submarine crews.

On
Wednesday, the 29-year era of the Tu-142 will draw to a close, when the 312nd
Indian Navy Aviation Squadron (INAS - 312) at INS Rajali, at Arrakonam in Tamil
Nadu retires these “long range maritime reconnaissance” (LRMR) aircraft.

In its
place, the job of searching out and destroying enemy submarines in the waters
off India’s coast will fall to the navy’s new fleet of a dozen Boeing P-8I
aircraft.

In an
indicator of shifting geopolitics, India paid $2.1 billion for eight P-8I anti-submarine
warfare (ASW) aircraft, following that up with another, billion dollar contract
for four more. After the eight Tu-142 and five Ilyushin-38 aircraft are all
retired, LRMR --- which was the exclusive preserve of Soviet/Russian aircraft
--- will be carried out entirely by American aircraft.

Since the
Tu-142 first joined the Indian Navy in 1988, the aircraft has been one of the
world’s most iconic and recognisable submarine hunters. The size of half a
football field, the Tu-142 has four contra-rotating propeller engines (two
propellers rotating in one direction, the other two in another) that allow it
to fly 13,000 kilometres without refuelling. It is the world’s largest and
faster turboprop aircraft, says the navy.

On ASW
patrols close to the mainland, the Tu-142 can loiter (continuously monitor an
area) for up to 10½ hours. Eleven crewmembers locate enemy submarines with
sonobuoys and magnetic anomaly detectors (which pick up a submarine’s magnetic
signature), which can then be destroyed with anti-submarine mines and torpedoes.

This
capability has been maintained to the last, with one Tu-142 clocking 53 flying
hours at Tropex 2017, the Indian Navy’s annual operational exercise, according
to a naval spokesperson.

“The Tu-142
has lived its total technical life and it is no longer economically viable to
keep it in service. Russia continues to operate its Tu-142 fleet, but the cold
conditions they function in are much easier on the aircraft”, says the Flag
Officer Naval Aviation, Rear Admiral Puneet Bahl.

The Tu-142M
was the Soviet Union’s answer during the Cold War to America’s Polaris, the
world’s first submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with a range of 1,800
kilometres. After the Polaris became operational in 1960 on the submarine, USS
George Washington, the Tupolev Design Bureau took a full decade to perfect the
Tu-142M to keep track of US Navy missile submarines.

Designated
the “Bear” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, for which the aircraft
remained an enigma, more than a hundred Tu-142 variants were built for the
Soviet, Russian, Ukrainian and Indian navies.

The Tu-142,
like the MiG-25RB Foxbat reconnaissance aircraft, was a cutting-edge Soviet
military platform that Moscow shared only with close allies that it regarded
with special favour.

Like the
Tu-142, the Boeing P-8 is operated by a handful of partners. Only the Indian
and Australian navies fly the aircraft, while the US Navy will eventually
operate a giant fleet of 117 aircraft.

Based on a
Boeing 737-8/9 airframe, the P-8I has the world’s most modern radar sensors and
a weapons package that includes the formidable Harpoon Block II anti-ship
missile, Mark 54 torpedoes, and the Mark 52 depth charge.

In addition, the P-8I is data-linked with Indian submarines,
to which it can pass on the location of any enemy submarine it detects. The
Indian submarines can then zero-in on the intruder and fire torpedoes to
destroy it.

Based on a commercial airliner’s airframe, the Boeing P-8I
costs much less to operate, maintain and overhaul.

In 2014,
when Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi attended the annual awards ceremony of
the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO), he jolted the self-congratulatory
annual function by insisting on timely delivery and innovation.

Criticising
what he termed the DRDO’s “chalta hai” (lackadaisical) attitude, Modi placed it
under a scanner that led in early 2015 to the exit of Avinash Chander, then the
DRDO’s well-respected chief.

Two and a
half years later, that reformist impulse has vanished, with the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) no longer demanding performance from a DRDO that functions
much as it did in 2014. On Friday, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, distributing
annual awards to a DRDO, expressed happiness that “the DRDO is becoming an
important instrument in the effort for self-reliance.”

This effusive
praise came even though none of the three “indigenous products” handed over to
the navy on Friday were path-breaking developments. The USHUS-2 submarine sonar
system was only an improvement on the USHUS-1 that was fitted a decade ago in
the navy’s Kilo-class submarines. Similarly, the “ring laser gyroscope” based
navigation system has also been around for years.

Given this
modest delivery, it appears incongruous that Jaitley awarded fifteen DRDO
scientists with the “Scientist of the Year” award.

“The DRDO
cannot treat incremental improvements to its own systems as breakthrough
triumphs. Continuous improvement should be a matter of routine for DRDO
systems”, says a serving navy admiral.

Nor is the
navy impressed by Myanmar’s order for $37.9 million worth of the DRDO’s advanced
lightweight torpedoes (TAL). It is hardly a secret the TAL is modelled on the
A244S lightweight torpedo that Italian company, WASS, supplied the Indian Navy.

In 2014,
Modi had tellingly criticised the communication gap between scientists who
remained ensconced in their laboratories, and the soldiers on the borders. The
PM wondered why the DRDO could not deliver simple but crucial items in a soldier’s
personal gear, bringing down the weight of a water bottle from 300 grams to 150
grams, or developing lighter boots to reduce fatigue.

Yet, today,
with the soldier’s personal gear as cumbersome and poorly designed as ever,
Jaitley lauded “The role of those [scientists] who remain faceless and work in
some important field.”

In 2014,
Modi had suggested the DRDO empower younger scientists, starting with manning
five of its 52 laboratories exclusively with scientists under 35 years of age. Yet,
only lip service is paid to empowering younger scientists.

The PM had
also criticised the DRDO’s endemic time delays in delivering equipment. He
directed that, instead of re-inventing the wheel by designing indigenous
versions of equipment already in service in advanced militaries, the DRDO
should develop futuristic equipment before advanced countries did so.

Yet, the
bulk of what DRDO works on --- such as the Tejas fighter, unmanned aerial
vehicles, warship systems, artillery guns, the Arjun tank, etc --- all
constitute equipment that has been in service worldwide for decades.

DRDO chief,
S Christopher, claimed that the defence ministry had cleared orders of DRDO
equipment worth 2.56 lakh crore rupees; with one lakh crore worth of orders
cleared in the last two years alone. In fact, “clearing” a procurement is a
preliminary step of the acquisition process, with the majority of clearances
never actually resulting in an order being contracted.

Friday, 24 March 2017

The
state-controlled Chinese media has sharply criticised the commissioning of Japan’s
powerful new warship, which has the same name --- Kaga --- as one of the
Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carriers in World War II.

The
original Kaga, which Beijing’s English language daily, Global Times, terms a
“notorious warship”, was sunk by the US Navy in the Battle of Midway in 1942.

With
Japanese Ship (JS) Kaga’s rebirth on Wednesday as a “helicopter destroyer”,
Japan now has Asia’s only navy with two aircraft carrier-sized warships --- the
Kaga and its predecessor, JS Izumo. The 248 metre-long Kaga is larger than the
Indian Navy’s recently decommissioned carrier, INS Viraat.

Additionally,
Japan also operates two smaller helicopter destroyers, JS Haga and JS Ise,
which are about the same weight class as the “Harrier carriers” that served the
Italian, Spanish and Thai navies.

Beijing
would also have noted last fortnight’s commissioning of Japan’s eighth
Soryu-class submarine --- a massive 4,100-tonne vessel with air independent
propulsion that many consider the world’s finest conventional submarine. With
11 older Oyashio-class submarines already in the fleet, Japan would have 23
submarines by 2021, when all 12 Soryu-class vessels are delivered.

Yet, the Japanese
government, headed by the avowedly nationalist Shinzo Abe, still calls its navy
the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF). However, with China
aggressively enforcing claims to disputed islands and waters in the Sea of
Japan, East China Sea and South China Sea, Tokyo is gradually dropping the
pretence.

Reuters has
reported that JS Izumo will shortly lead a JMSDF naval task force on a
three-month tour of the South China Sea, which the news agency terms the
“biggest show of naval power in foreign waters in more than 70 years.”

JS Kaga,
like its forerunner, JS Izumo, currently has a compliment of just nine
helicopters. However, each vessel can embark 28 small, or 14 large aircraft.
The helicopter carriers are not fitted with catapults or ski jumps for
launching fixed wing fighters, but they could function as aircraft carriers by
embarking vertical take-off fighters like the F-35B Lightening II.

Tokyo has a
contradictory position on the use of military force. Its pacifist constitution,
imposed on a defeated Japan by a victorious US after World War II, explicitly
renounces war. It limits Japan’s defence spending to just one per cent of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) and prohibits it from acquiring offensive weapons
platforms like aircraft carriers (helicopter carriers are passed off as
defensive platforms).

On the
other hand, the US today sees Japan as an ally against a resurgent China. Washington
backs unapologetically nationalist leaders like Abe, who argue for shedding the
US-imposed restraint. When President Donald Trump argued for allies like Japan
to bear more of the cost of their defence he was, in effect, arguing for
scuppering Japan’s one per cent spending cap.

Yet the
JMSDF, despite its spending restraints, is widely considered Asia’s most
powerful navy, even beating out China. Even with the one per cent spending cap,
Japan has announced a defence budget for 2017 of $43.6 billion, only marginally
smaller than India’s $53.5 billion.

Unlike
India and China, Japan’s army does not consume the bulk of the budget --- the
navy and air force do. In contrast, India’s navy was allocated just 14 per cent
and the air force 22 per cent of the defence budget.

Furthermore,
Japan’s sophisticated shipbuilding industry, including giants like Kawasaki
Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, churn out warships fast and
cheaply. Japan’s latest defence budget reveals they will build a new
Soryu-class submarine for $685 million (India’s Scorpene submarines, less than
half the Soryu’s size, cost about the same). Japan is building a 690-tonne,
Awaji-class ocean minesweeper for just $160 million, and has budgeted $210
million for a 2,900-tonne Hibiki-class ocean surveillance ship.

For over a
decade, the US has cajoled India and Tokyo into closer naval cooperation. Last
year, Japan formally became a participant in the annual Malabar naval exercise,
making it a US-India-Japan trilateral exercise.

There are
bilateral proposals between New Delhi and Tokyo for the supply of Japanese
defence equipment to India --- a touchy subject, given Japan’s constitution. On
the table is the Japanese maritime sea-plane, the US-2; and the Soryu
submarine.

Thursday, 23 March 2017

Even
as India crosses another milestone in missile defence, analysts warn against
excessive optimism

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 22nd March 17

India’s
most ambitious foray into missile development is the Defence R&D
Organisation’s (DRDO’s) anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, designed to shoot
down incoming nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles fired from Pakistan or China at
Indian cities.

This technologically
challenging and controversial programme has made steady headway. On March 1, an
interceptor missile, fired from Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha, detected and
destroyed a simulated enemy missile when it was 15-25 kilometres above the
earth. The DRDO has claimed full success in most of the dozen-odd ABM tests
conducted so far.

ABM systems
are controversial because they destabilise the nuclear balance between two
adversary countries. When one adversary, e.g. India, deploys an ABM shield, it
incentivizes the other, e.g. Pakistan or China, to build (and in a conflict, fire)
more nuclear weapons to defeat that shield by swamping it with missiles. During
the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union guarded against this by signing an ABM
Treaty that sharply restricted defensive measures on both sides. Pakistan
already has the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal, with its Khushab
reactor producing plutonium full-steam.

Then, there
is the technological challenge of developing an ABM shield. Striking an
incoming ballistic missile is as hard as hitting a bullet with a bullet.
Depending upon how far the incoming missile is fired from, it would approach
the target at 1,500-3,000 metres per second (the further, the faster). With the
interceptor travelling at 1,500-2,000 metres per second, the two missiles would
approach each other at a relative speed of 3,000-5,000 metres --- or
three-to-five kilometres --- every second. Guiding the interceptor to the
target missile, and exploding within a few metres of it, requires precision of the
highest order.

In developing
an ABM shield, the designers’ first decision is: at what stage of its flight should
the incoming missile be engaged and shot down? Depending upon where it is fired
from the incoming missile may have travelled just a few hundred kilometres
(from Pakistan) or as much as several thousand kilometres (from China, or North
Korea).

Whatever the
distance, the missile would journey through three phases --- boost phase,
mid-course or coast phase, and terminal phase. While an ABM system could be
configured to shoot it down in any of these phases, each presents its own technological
complexities.

Engagement profile

The boost
phase is the most vulnerable stage in a missile’s flight trajectory, when it
blasts off its launch platform and picks up speed, accelerating into space for 180-300
seconds, depending upon the missile’s range. This is when the missile travels
at its slowest and cannot perform evasive manoeuvres or deploy decoys or
counter-measures. The difficulty, however, is that, since the missile is at its
launch pad, intelligence satellites would have to monitor enemy territory, to
pick up indications of a launch. Then, in the short time available, the interceptor
missile would have to be fired and travel all the way to the launch area.

Next comes
the mid-course phase, in which the missile travels through space towards its
target. This lasts just seconds for a short range ballistic missile fired from
Pakistan; or as much as 20 minutes for long range ballistic missiles fired from
several thousand kilometres away. Mid-course engagement provides a longer time-window
for sensing, decision-making and engagement; and a shorter distance for the
interceptor to travel.

However, ballistic
missiles often release decoys in this stage, requiring the interceptor to differentiate
between the decoys and the mother vehicle.

An example
of mid-course engagement is the US interceptor missiles based in Alaska to
shoot down Chinese or Russian ballistic missiles travelling towards the
American continent. Beijing’s vociferous objection last month to US radars
deployed in South Korea may have stemmed from Chinese concern that these would
make it easier for the Alaska interceptors to target Chinese missiles.

The final
engagement opportunity is in the terminal phase, when the incoming missile starts
descending, re-enters the atmosphere and hurtles towards its target. “Terminal
phase engagement” gives the ABM system maximum time for detection and
decision-making and requires the interceptor missile to travel the least
distance. The downside is that many ballistic missiles are programmed to carry
out manoeuvres when they re-enter, making them difficult to target.

India’s ABM shield

An ABM
shield has three functional components: First, a radar network that can detect
enemy ballistic missiles as soon as possible after launch; and then track them
along their flight path. While a ground-based radar’s range is limited by the
earth’s curvature, a satellite-based radar can pick up a ballistic missile’s
fiery plume as it is fired. The DRDO’s primary ABM radar is the Long Range Tracking
Radar (LRTR), developed in partnership with Israeli company, Elta.

The LRTR is
based on Elta’s EL/M-2080 Green Pine radar, which is the nerve centre of
Israel’s vaunted Arrow ABM system. Separately, the DRDO is working on a
satellite-based sensor that would be integrated into the ABM system, once
perfected.

The second functional
component of the DRDO’s ABM system is a sophisticated, computerised command and
control system that plots and predicts the intruder missile’s flight path and
assigns interceptor missiles to destroy it. With very little time available for
humans to weigh choices, almost all decision-making relating to engagement
choices is automated.

The third
component is the interceptor missiles, of which the ABM shield has two
different types. One is an exo-atmospheric (or “outside atmosphere”) missile
called the Pradyumna, which intercepts the intruder while it is 50-80
kilometres above the earth. The other, called the Ashvin, is an
endo-atmospheric (“inside atmosphere”) missile that intercepts the enemy
ballistic missile at altitudes of 20-40 kilometres. They are normally fired
together (in a “salvo”) to increase the chances that at least one missile will
destroy the target.

After they
are launched, guidance radar directs them towards the target; once in its
vicinity, a “proximity fuze” explodes the warhead, damaging the intruder
missile and warhead.

Range is a key determinant

Given how
close India is to Pakistan, it takes just 5-15 minutes for the entire engagement,
from launch to interception. A missile fired from a Pakistani launch site would
take just 5-6 minutes to reach targets in north India, a few hundred kilometres
away. Targets in south India, 1,500-2,000 kilometres away from Pakistan, take
10-15 minutes to reach. Paradoxically, being close to India is a disadvantage
to Pakistan because the closer a missile is fired from, the slower it travels
in its terminal phase, making it easier to intercept.

India’s ABM
shield is geared to intercept missiles fired from up to 2,000 kilometres away. A
short range Pakistani ballistic missile like the Shaheen 1A (Hatf IV), with a
range of 900 kilometres, would have a warhead re-entry speed of about 2,000
metres per second, which Indian ABM interceptors can manage. The Shaheen-II
(Hatf VI), with a range of 2,000 kilometres, would have its payload re-enter at
2,500-3,000 metres per second, which is just within the range of the Indian ABM
system.

Pakistan’s longest-range
missile is Shaheen III, with a range of 2,750 kilometres, which was developed
to bring the Andaman & Nicobar Islands into range. The Shaheen III, like
China’s longer-range missiles, cannot yet be intercepted by India’s ABM system.
However, paradoxically, Pakistan’s lack of geographical depth means the Shaheen
II and III cannot be used against north Indian targets
like New Delhi, which is barely 1,500 kilometres from Pakistan’s farthest
regions. To avoid overshooting Delhi, Pakistan would have to use the shorter
range Shaheen I, which is easier to intercept.

Future of ABM

In 2011,
former DRDO chief Avinash Chander told Business Standard that an ABM shield
would protect the national capital within three years (“Delhi could have anti-missile shield by 2014”, August 29, 2011).
Chander’s predecessor, VK Saraswat, had provided even more optimistic
time-lines, raising concerns worldwide over the erosion of deterrence in South
Asia.

Since then,
the government has issued strict orders to the DRDO not to speak about the
system. Currently, the development of the ABM system can be gauged mainly from reports
of interceptor test flights and the move of radars to sensitive locations like
New Delhi. Over recent years, two LRTRs were moved to Delhi and integrated into
the Indian Air Force national surveillance network.

Even as the
ABM system successfully crosses developmental milestones, analysts warn against
excessive optimism and overblown expectations. In most nuclear war-gaming in
the US, ABM defences have been overcome relatively easily by expedients as simple
as swamping the defences with missile salvos, or with multiple independently
targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), that are essentially several independent
warheads fitted onto a single missile.

On January
24, Pakistan test-fired its new Ababeel ballistic missile, which it claimed was
a MIRV system, “aimed at ensuring survivability of Pakistan's ballistic
missiles in the growing regional Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) environment”.
The cat and mouse game with missile defence seems set to continue.

Wednesday, 22 March 2017

A day after Business Standard reported a
new approach in New Delhi strategic circles to India’s use of nuclear weapons
(March 20, “Will India nuke Pakistani cities,
or go for its nuclear arsenal?”), the influential Washington D.C. think
tank, Carnegie Endowment, discussed the same issue --- the possibility of an
Indian “first strike” to defang Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

At the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy
Conference on Monday, a prestigious annual event at which important strategic
policy chances are often signalled, a discussion took place on whether India
was moving away from massive counter-value retaliation (i.e. nuking towns and
cities) to counter-force targeting (i.e. nuking enemy nuclear forces and
command structures).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
professor, Vipin Narang, outlined a scenario in which a Pakistan-backed
terrorist strike on India killed scores of civilians. New Delhi mobilised its
three strike corps and attacked Pakistan. With the armour-heavy 21 Corps bludgeoning
along, Pakistan ordered a “demonstration” strike with tactical nuclear weapons
(TNWs) --- its short-range Nasr missile batteries --- as a nuclear warning to
India. New Delhi’s response, according to traditional Indian nuclear doctrine
would then be “massive counter-value retaliation against Pakistani cities,
leaving aside how credible or incredible that might be.”

But then Narang sprung the surprise. “There
is increasing evidence that India will not allow Pakistan to go first. And that
India’s opening salvo may not be conventional strikes trying to pick off just
Nasr batteries in the theatre, but a full ‘comprehensive counterforce strike’
that attempts to completely disarm Pakistan of its nuclear weapons so that
India does not have to engage in… tit-for-tat exchanges and expose its own
cities to nuclear destruction.”

Narang pointed out that this dramatic
change did not surface from “fringe voices”, but from former national security
advisor Shivshankar Menon in his new book; and former chief of India’s
strategic forces command, Lieutenant General BS Nagal, both of whom have
questioned India’s traditional “massive counter-value retaliation”.

Narang pointed to a possible “decoupling”
of Indian nuclear strategy vis-a-vis China and Pakistan. While retaining NFU
and massive counter-value retaliation against China, New Delhi was considering
a disarming counter-force strike against Pakistan.

Also in question was India’s longstanding
“no first use” (NFU) policy, with Narang pointing out that it had been
questioned at least four times already. First, India’s official nuclear
doctrine, published in 2003, officially eroded the sanctity of NFU by invoking
nuclear use against chemical or biological weapons. Second, in November, former
defence minister Manohar Parrikar stated (later clarified to be in his personal
capacity): “India should not declare whether it has a NFU policy”. Third,
General Nagal, in his writings questioned the morality of NFU, asking whether
it was possible for India’s leadership to accept huge casualties by restraining
its hand well knowing that Pakistan was about to use nuclear weapons.

Fourth, Menon undermines NFU’s sanctity
with this paragraph in his book: “There is a potential grey area as to when
India would use nuclear weapons first against another NWS (nuclear weapons
state). Circumstances are conceivable in which India might find it useful to
strike first, for instance, against an NWS that had declared it would certainly
use its weapons, and if India were certain that adversary’s launch was
imminent.”

Said Narang at Carnegie: “Indian leaders
can disavow all of this as personal opinions, but when a sitting defence
minister, former Strategic Forces commander, and highly respected NSA all
question the sanctity of NFU, it all starts to add up.”

Also quoted was Menon’s argument in his
book that clearly indicates that strategy has shifted from counter-value
targeting to counter-force strikes. Menon refers to counter-value targeting in
the past tense, writing: “[T]he logical posture at first was counter-value
targeting, or targeting an opponent’s assets, rather than counter-force
targeting, which concentrates on the enemy’s military and command structures.”

Menon continues: “There would be little
incentive, once Pakistan had taken hostilities to the nuclear level, for India
to limit its response, since that would only invite further escalation by
Pakistan. India would hardly risk giving Pakistan the chance to carry out a
massive nuclear strike after the Indian response to Pakistan using tactical
nuclear weapons. In other words, Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons use [or
imminent use] would effectively free India to undertake a comprehensive first
strike against Pakistan.”

Bringing these views together, it might not
be Pakistan that first resorts to a nuclear strike in South Asia. Rather it could
be India, acting pro-actively when it believed Pakistan was about to cross the
nuclear threshold.

So far, there has been no reaction from New
Delhi. In the past, any questioning of NFU or “massive retaliation” has evoked
a swift quasi-official rebuttal.

Former national security advisor (NSA) Shivshankar
Menon has shed new light on an especially worrying aspect of India’s nuclear
doctrine --- New Delhi’s barely credible promise of automatic, “massive”
nuclear retaliation against any adversary that targets India, or Indian forces
anywhere, with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

The credibility gap in this strategy of
“massive retaliation”, as pointed out by critics worldwide, is that it would
cause carnage in the adversary’s towns and cities but leave intact much of his
nuclear arsenal. With those surviving nukes (second-strike capability), the
adversary would then wreak havoc on Indian towns and cities.

It is hard for New Delhi, globally regarded
as a restrained power, to convince analysts and adversaries that it would knowingly
trigger the catastrophic deaths of millions of civilians on both sides by
responding “massively” to a far smaller attack --- even, a single Pakistani
Tactical Nuclear Weapon (TNW) that killed perhaps a hundred Indian soldiers
deep inside Pakistani territory.

Yet, India’s nuclear doctrine, promulgated
on January 4, 2003, undertakes that “Nuclear retaliation to a first strike [by
an adversary] will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.”

Now Menon, in his recent book entitled
“Choices: Inside the making of Indian foreign policy”, indicates that India’s threat
of “massive retaliation” need not involve nuclear strikes against Pakistani urban
centres (“counter-value”, or CV strikes). Instead, India’s “massive response”
could take the form of targeting Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal (“counter-force”,
or CF strikes), leaving that adversary with a greatly diminished capability of
striking back at India.

In a key paragraph in his book, Menon ---
who, as NSA, oversaw nuclear targeting policy --- analyses the meaning of a
“massive” strike. He says: “There would be little incentive, once Pakistan had
taken hostilities to the nuclear level, for India to limit its response, since
that would only invite further escalation by Pakistan. India would hardly risk
giving Pakistan the chance to carry out a massive nuclear strike after the
Indian response to Pakistan using tactical nuclear weapons. In other worlds,
Pakistani tactical nuclear weapon use would effectively free India to undertake
a comprehensive first strike against Pakistan.”

Menon clearly enunciates the logic of a
disarming CF strike: “India would hardly risk giving Pakistan the chance to
carry out a massive nuclear strike after the Indian response…” In other words,
India’s “second strike” (in response to a TNW against its forces) must leave
Pakistan with little or no “third strike” capability.

But does a disarming counter-force strike
(which Menon terms a “comprehensive first strike”) amount to a “massive”
response, which Indian doctrine mandates? A senior Indian official asks: “Who
says a “massive” response must necessarily be directed at CV targets?

Menon’s book has been in print since
November, but only now has this nuance been noted by Vipin Narang, a highly regarded
nuclear strategist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This week, Narang
tweeted: “Indian strategy following Pak tacnuke (tactical nuclear) use is
neither proportional response nor massive retaliation. But [rather, it is a]
disarming counterforce strike.”

Even so, serious question marks remain over
how effectively, or whether at all, India can actually execute a disarming CF
strike that takes out most of Pakistan’s nukes. Partly because of the
possibility of Indian attack, Pakistan is building up its nuclear arsenal faster
than any other country, running its Khushab nuclear reactor at full tilt to
produce plutonium. It is currently estimated to have 120-130 nuclear warheads.

Furthermore, any impression in Pakistan of
Indian counterforce strikes, or the fear that the nukes might soon be lost, would
incentivize their early use --- the “use them or lose them” dilemma.

Indian public debate has traditionally focused
on another aspect of our doctrine --- the commitment of “No First Use” (NFU) of
nuclear weapons. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioned NFU in its
pre-2014 election manifesto, before backing off quickly. Then, last year,
former defence minister Manohar Parrikar raised questions over the need for
NFU, before the BJP dismissed that as his “personal view”.

However, given Pakistan’s conventional
military weakness in the face of a sudden Indian offensive under the “Cold Start”
doctrine, Rawalpindi’s operationalization of TNWs, and its declared plan to use
them early in a conflict, make India’s response a matter of life and death for
millions.